Is Teach for America, Inc. morphing into Leadership for Educational Equity? Is there an image problem here or are they just playing a shell game?

Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) is a nonpartisan leadership development organization that inspires our members towards civic engagement. LEE is dedicated to empowering Teach For America corps members and alumni to grow as leaders in their communities and help build the movement for educational equity. For more information on LEE’s mission, vision and core values, please click here.

LEE is a high-growth, results-oriented organization that operates in an entrepreneurial environment and is committed to continuous improvement.

LEE’s Policy and Advocacy Summer Fellowship is an opportunity for corps members and recent alumni to get their foot in the policy or advocacy door by working directly with an influential organization…

The ultimate goal of Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, Inc., is to keep the million dollar money mill going by ensuring that reforms that suit her business model remain in place.

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For more on Teach for America, Inc., here is the following information from our page on Teach for America, Inc.:

What started out as a possibly altruistic idea of going into small towns in the South where it was difficult to staff schools and instead bring in lightly trained recent college graduates to populate the classrooms, has now become a multimillion dollar business relying on charter schools to use these recruits to staff their charter franchises.

These recruits contract with TFA, Inc. for two or three years then most move on to graduate school, law school or another chosen profession leaving schools and creating churn.

Another aspect of this that is overlooked is that with the new teacher evaluation system that is being pushed by Arne Duncan and his army of privatizers, the performance of the TFA, Inc. recruits will never be evaluated over time so there would be a steady stream of these young people teaching under the radar of the evaluation system.

Wendy Kopp charges school districts anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000 per recruit each year for the “privilege” of having her recruits staff the most under-performing and impoverished schools or charter schools that do not hire union teachers.

And what does Wendy Kopp make each year from her endeavor to staff our schools with recruits after 5 weeks of “training”? We can take a look at her 990 form, the form that is submitted by tax exempt organizations, to get an idea.

In a previous post, you can see that Ms. Kopp then charges the school district for the training of these recruits as clearly described in the contract that she has with the Seattle Public School system but at the same time, she considers that as an expense on her tax form.

Ms. Kopp paid herself that year a little over $375,000 and along with her staff, the total came to over $2M.

Not too shabby for a “non-profit”.

A video from a former Teach for America recruit

In Mr. Bilby’s words:

My name is John Bilby and I was a TFA teacher in the New York region from September 2009 until March 2010. I left the organization because I felt that it does not adequately prepare its people to serve the poorest children in public schools. I also think that TFA is more interested in power, access, and influence in the federal game of education than it is concerned with resolving educational inequity. Its “corps members” are merely a means to this end, providing the organization with a front while it pursues the goals of its donors, namely to remodel public education in this country in order to favor a high-turnover, non-unionized workforce in charters run by hedge-fund managers for tax breaks. I foresee this further stratifying our current system into one in which children with disabilities, children who don’t speak English, and children who do not do well on standardized tests are funneled into substandard schools in a constant state of crisis due to continuous budget cutting.

I still believe, however, in the democratic power of education and the right of the people to vote out those who might infringe upon it. I am beginning a traditional route teacher certification program and I am looking forward to getting back into a city classroom soon.

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One comment on “Is Teach for America, Inc. morphing into Leadership for Educational Equity? Is there an image problem here or are they just playing a shell game?”

Norbert Leute

October 3, 2014

No body talks about the Troops for Teacher Program. It has been in Washington for twenty years. When it started, there was little support for it by many school district. Speaking for myself, it lead to discriminatory hiring practices by school district. As one human resource and equity director told me, my military experience meant crap to teaching. When I ran for the school board in 2007, the Spokesman Review reporters questioning me, didn’t know and think the program was important. Yet, we continue to talk about a program that has lots of problems, is supported by big money, and politicians. None of these people supported the Troops for Teacher Program.

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